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Murder on the Champ de Mars
"[Cara Black] is on to a good thing: each of her novels is set in a colorful Parisian neighborhood—and there are a lot of them. The cumulative result of reading this addictive series is a sort of mini-tour of the city, as seen through a filter of fictional murder ... Leduc is always a reliable and charming guide to the city's lesser-known corners."
—The Seattle Times

Book Description

Burned out from the gritty streets and depraved criminals she deals with daily, NYPD Detective Alex Sullivan escapes to the only place she can find any peace—a Zen Monastery in the Catskill Mountains. But while there, the walls of this once peaceful sanctuary are breached by the horror of ritual murders and the slow acid drip of suspicion.

One Hand Killing is a fast-paced thriller that paints a fascinating psychological portrait of the struggle between light and dark forces in the spiritual world. It presents a new and unusual twist to the suspense genre, going well beyond the classic Who-done-it? to a more sophisticated literary koan: what, indeed, is the sound of one hand killing?

Burned out from the gritty streets and depraved criminals she deals with daily, NYPD Detective Alex Sullivan escapes to the only place she can find any peace—a Zen Monastery in the Catskill Mountains. But while there, the walls of this once peaceful sanctuary are breached by the horror of ritual murders and the slow acid drip of suspicion.

One Hand Killing is a fast-paced thriller that paints a fascinating psychological portrait of the struggle between light and dark forces in the spiritual world. It presents a new and unusual twist to the suspense genre, going well beyond the classic Who-done-it? to a more sophisticated literary koan: what, indeed, is the sound of one hand killing?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Nancy O'Hara is a meditation coach in real life who kills people in her
fiction. She is the author of six books on the subject of mindfulness
and meditation, including the bestselling Find a Quiet Corner. Along
with her writing, Nancy shares her experience through her Mindful Life
Coaching practice, meditation classes, workshops, and retreats. This is
her first work of fiction in the Alex Sullivan Zen Mystery series. She
lives in New York City with her perfectly imperfect husband, trees
outside her windows and noisy upstairs neighbors.
Visit Nancy:
On her website: nancyohara.com/
On FaceBook: facebook.com/NancyOHaraAuthor
And on Twitter: twitter.com/ZenMysteries

Nancy O'Hara has created a wonderful female detective in ONE HAND KILLING. I love mysteries and was intrigued with the setting of this novel. Alex leaves NYC for a retreat at a Buddhist monastery and instead of a quiet, relaxing, contemplative week, she is plunged into a bizarre situation that includes murder and a man hunt. In addition, Alex is forced to tread a thin line between maintaining the Buddhist precepts and balancing her role as a detective attempting to solve a horrible crime. I highly recommend this novel to anyone who loves mysteries, especially a mystery with a strong female lead, who must solve a crime and, at the same time, wrestle with the conflicts within her own heart and soul. Definitely two thumbs up! I look forward to the next Alex Sullivan mystery. You go girl.

"One Hand Killing" by Nancy O'Hara, is the first novel in what is promised to be the Alex Sullivan Zen mystery series. The title is of course a playful variation of the famous Zen riddle, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" And one reads the book with an additional mega-level of suspense: Will the author be able to merge the traditions of Zen with the traditions of the whodunit?

As I understand it, a goal of practicing Zen is to find inner peace and a sense of connectedness. In other words, it's quite a cultural distance from the traditional hard-boiled, hard-cussing, obsessive world of the murder mystery.

Protagonist Alex Sullivan is not unaware of these disparate claims of reality. She is a student of Zen but also a proud member of the NYPD. When murder comes to what should be a peaceful retreat at a Zen monastery, Alex trips, stumbles, and falls as she tries not only to solve a case that the cops are not succeeding with, but also to maintain her Zen composure. She must hear the sound of one hand killing, so to speak, and her spiritual training proves handy in ways she wouldn't have predicted.

Readers familiar with Zen or other Eastern religious traditions--or the general conglomeration of spiritual practices often called New Age--should enjoy this book. Also, if you've ever wanted a crash course in Zen, you will get it. Mystery readers who simply want to know who did it--or for whatever reason are turned off to Eastern religions--may or may not empathize with Alex as she tends to her spiritual goals with as much vigor as solving the case.

But all in all, the author deserves credit for this unusual approach to the murder mystery genre, and I look forward to seeing where Alex takes us in future books.

This was an excellent read !! I love mysteries and, having spent a few weekends at a Zen Monastery, found the collision of the peaceful world of Zen and cold blooded murder irresistible. I loved the female detective -- a woman traveling life's erratic path, struggling with her next "incarnation" and along the way finding renewed purpose in her work, in herself -- and many new koans to consider. This is two hands clapping for ONE HAND KILLING.

One hand killing will slay you. Nancy paints amazing pictures, this book has an authenticity, because she's been there and done that. Well, with Zen anyway, I'm not sure she's actually kill anyone. Yet. Tight, taut, suspenseful, and with a great leading lady. Om. baby, om!

I tried not to have any preconceived notions about what I would encounter in a murder mystery set in a meditation retreat. And even though I knew better I still conjured up images of Shaolin monks performing kung fu protecting their temple from evil, or the dark foreboding in 'The Name of the Rose' with Sean Connery as its charismatic nonconformist monk investigating mysterious deaths in an isolated abbey. In 'One Hand Killing,' Alex Sullivan,a detective from the big city differs from Sean Connery's monk by trying to conform to and maintain the meditative atmosphere of the retreat she embrace as her sanctuary, even as she is desperately trying to uncover who is causing this string of grisly murders. She is torn between her secular world and the world of the mountaintop retreat which is shown with enough details about its rigors to deter the faint of heart, and quickly becomes terribly disrupted as one death after another begins to tear the serenity apart. Alex and the other characters are well drawn and though I wasn't as caught up in the mystery as I might have liked, I was interested enough in the character and the setting to want to see how it turned out. And now I am wondering what the next adventure Alex will face.

I just finished reading "One Hand Killing" by Nancy O'Hara and it was a fantastic read!

As soon as I began reading I was hooked, as I should be if I am about to dive intoa good mystery.

I loved the unique setting of a murder mystery taking place at a Zen Monasteryin the Catskill Mountains.If you love mysteries, even if your not a mystery lover, this book will certainlyget your attention and make you one!

Nancy is a terrific writer, I am looking forward to reading the second book of the Alex Sullivan Zen Mystery series.

More About the Author

Nancy O'Hara is a meditation coach in real life who kills people in her fiction. She is the author of six books on the subject of mindfulness and meditation, including the bestselling Find a Quiet Corner, and two novels in the Alex Sullivan Zen Mystery series. Along with her writing, Nancy shares her experience through her Mindful Life Coaching practice, meditation classes, workshops, and retreats.

She lives in New York City with her perfectly imperfect husband, trees outside her windows and noisy upstairs neighbors.